Parents are keen to keep an eye on their children's behavior and what media and information their children are exposed to. Further, parents endeavor to monitor and limit the amount of time their children spend exploring and consuming various electronic media (e.g. television and Internet content). The Internet and television represent a daunting amount of media and information, some of which parents may feel is not appropriate for their children to be exposed to. Many parents believe that there is such a thing as too much exposure to digital entertainment, even when benign.
In the past, parents could take pragmatic steps to keep an eye on their children's use of electronic media by limiting their children's access to media devices (e.g. television, family computer) to public or semi-public spaces within the home. For example, a parent may put the family computer or gaming console in the kitchen or den where a child could be easily monitored, instead of in the child's bedroom where monitoring the child may be difficult. With the advent of smartphones, laptops, tablets and other portable electronic devices, a child may now have un-tethered access to the Internet and a wide variety of digital entertainment in a very personal form factor. Accordingly, monitoring a child's access to electronic media has become much more difficult.